Getting Over It creator releases wobbly Pong, FLOP

Bennett Foddy, the fiendish fella behind QWOP and Getting Over It, has shared his own variant of iconic game Pong. It’s named FLOP, and you can probably guess what makes it different. Foddy actually made FLOP years ago, as a secret game hidden in the ace local multiplayer collection Sportsfriends, but now he’s released a standalone version so it’s simpler to play (with events in mind, really, but we benefit too). If you like a bit of jostling on a couch, it might give you some giggles.FLOP is Pong, right, expect the paddles are bendy blocks which can rotate as well as move up and down. This lets us spin our paddles to add a nasty kick to a shot, a bit like spinning a foosball player really hard, and quite weird at first. It’s silly, sure, but fun to master. The ball’s movement has some special qualities too.

You can download FLOP from Foddy’s site. It’s designed for two gamepads, though can work with arcade spinners if you’re really serious about your local multiplayer and have some. Foddy says he’s releasing this standalone version because people running events have requested it, but shh it’s handy for us too.

“It’s been my view for a while that it’s a worthwhile exercise for any game designer to make a chess variant, a dice variant and a Pong variant,” Foddy said. He tackled chess in the 16-player real-time Speed Chess, and here’s his Pong.

He spoke more about that interesting design exercise in this Gamasutra interview, if you’re interested. It’s inspired by a story of chefs showing their personal style through bread service and an egg dish, “foods are so neutral in flavour and so dependent on technique that you can use them to analyze the difference between chefs as artists.”

If you enjoy FLOP and haven’t played Sportfriends, absolutely get on that. Containing several great competitive local multiplayer games, it’s £11/€15/$15 on Steam or through a Humble widget on its site.